water is essential to the function of electrolytes and is a carrier of ions around the body. Ionic bonds are considered to be strong chemical bonds yet ions dissociate in water. Explain this apparent contradiction. It would be great if someone could explain this to me

Last edited by JackBean on Sun Aug 07, 2011 8:02 am, edited 2 times in total. Reason:just locked, so that royshaz9 won't change his post again after getting answer

Ionic crystals may contain a mixture of covalent and ionic species, as for example salts of complex acids, such as sodium cyanide, NaCN. Many minerals are of this type. X-ray diffration shows that in NaCN, for example, the bonds between sodium cations (Na+) and the cyanide anions (CN-) are ionic, with no sodium ion associated with any particular cyanide. However, the bonds between C and N atoms in cyanide are of the covalent type, making each of the carbon and nitrogen associated with just one of its opposite type, to which it is physically much closer than it is to other carbons or nitrogens in a sodium cyanide crystal.

When such salts dissolve into water, the ionic bonds are typically broken by the interaction with water, but the covalent bonds continue to hold. In solution, the cyanide ions, still bound together as single CN- ions, move independently through the solution, as do sodium ions, as Na+. These charged ions move apart because each of them are more strongly attracted to a number of water molecules, than to each other. The attraction between ions and water molecules in such solutions is due to a type of weak dipole-dipole type chemical bond.

Adz, unfortunately, royshaz9 has changed his post, so it's hard to say, what were you answering to, but it's not answer to the current question.royshaz9, you're looking for the dielectric constant and it's effect on ionic bonds.However, I'd like to add, that bond is 100% ionic, even the bond in rubidium fluoride is partly covalent.